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Shiro's death triggered the Jade Wind, by releasing the energies of the Harvest Ritual. As punishment, Shiro's soul became an Envoy, ferrying the newly dead through the Mists. Two hundred years after his demise, though, Shiro somehow learned to use the power of the Envoys in the creation of an army, unleashing first the Afflicted and later the Shiro'ken upon Cantha, as the former guardsman sought a way to return to life. After slaying Master Togo, Shiro's plan was successful, and he returned to life, but was eventually defeated again by the player characters. After his second death, the other Envoys took Shiro's soul to the worst prison in the afterlife.

It was discovered that he was taken to the Realm of Torment, which had been overrun by Abaddon and his demonic servants. Shiro became one of Abaddon's generals and was defeated in the Temple of the Six Gods. The fate of his soul is currently unknown.

=> It was his choice to continue to seek power, thus being imprisoned in the realm of torment, his best odds at getting back to the mortal realm was to assist Abaddon.

unless in the above one of abbadon's servents told him about the power to come back to life. idk much about lore but i mean if ur doing your job for 200yrs.. then suddenly want to create an army and come back to life, someone told you something to influence your decision.

Possible, but it could also be the time to give the other envoys some security + learning what he can do(the "learned to use the power of the Envoys" part) + acutally building the army without attracting attention. He arrives with a litteral army, he had to "store" the souls somewhere.

But if afflicted souls are sent to the realm of torment, I'm guessing either Abbadon has something in his mastery of envoy power or the taint is strong enough to come from his original manipulation.

added: Another option I can see, Abbadon didn't teach him the power, but allowed him to find the realm of Torment as a place to gather his army, corrupting them. As such, Shiro would still be free from abbadon when we fight him, but that would explain the corruption.

Personally, my understanding is that Shiro HAD to have been tricked the first time around. Whatever he did, and whatever it was exactly that powered the Jade Wind, he managed to avoid becoming close enough to Abaddon to be cast into the Realm of Torment - something the gods did even to those who loyally fought against Abaddon's minions (Dunkoro's son, for instance), so they wouldn't have given Shiro a sentence that requires him to interact with the souls of dead mortals if they thought he was tainted.

My suspicion is that sometime during Shiro's envoyhood, one of Abaddon's minions contacted him and informed him there was a way to break out of hock and return to life, as well as granting him the ability to spread the Affliction - so during the Factions storyline he was knowingly working with Abaddon and using Abaddon's taint to build his army. It's possible, however, that he never realised Abaddon's role in his original fall.

The plothole in this, though, is the History of Violence quest, which implies that somehow Shiro's victims at the Harvest Ceremony were tainted while Shrio himself was not...

Unlike the lich was already a follower of Abaddon before the cataclysm. Shiro was simply tricked by a tormented creature, if he knew the truth he shouldn't serve Abaddon willingly.

What evidence do you have that Khilbron was a knowing follower of Abaddon? The demon Razakel (in the guise of Terick) tricked the Vizier into using the forbidden magic as a desperation move. Nothing in that story shows that Khilbron knew of or even suspected a connection between that scroll and Abaddon, much less showing that Khilbron was a worshipper.

Personally, my understanding is that Shiro HAD to have been tricked the first time around. Whatever he did, and whatever it was exactly that powered the Jade Wind, he managed to avoid becoming close enough to Abaddon to be cast into the Realm of Torment - something the gods did even to those who loyally fought against Abaddon's minions (Dunkoro's son, for instance), so they wouldn't have given Shiro a sentence that requires him to interact with the souls of dead mortals if they thought he was tainted.

My suspicion is that sometime during Shiro's envoyhood, one of Abaddon's minions contacted him and informed him there was a way to break out of hock and return to life, as well as granting him the ability to spread the Affliction - so during the Factions storyline he was knowingly working with Abaddon and using Abaddon's taint to build his army. It's possible, however, that he never realised Abaddon's role in his original fall.

The plothole in this, though, is the History of Violence quest, which implies that somehow Shiro's victims at the Harvest Ceremony were tainted while Shrio himself was not...

I always took it as Shiro being given a second chance directly under Grenth's say, since he was unknowingly tricked into his own downfall (while Khilbron furthered the following after his undead). And as to why those who fight Abaddon's minion gets sent to the Realm of Torment may be because they actually knew what happened. Even if it was as simple as "demons killed me" or "the Cataclysm happened." With Shiro, nothing shows that he knew that he was tapping into Abaddon's power or was being corrupted by him. I.e., the "taint" is, imo, less of being influenced by, but knowing the influence.

Indeed, that's my thought as well. The plothole, though, as I said, is that the text for A History of Violence has the guardsmen involved as being those that were killed by Shiro's blades in the Harvest Ceremony - if Shiro himself managed to avoid being tainted with knowledge of Abaddon, then how did guardsmen who simply had the misfortune to fall victim to his blades end up more tainted than their killer?

Personally, the only way I can resolve this is that the quest writer made a mistake and they were supposed to be guardsmen from 1072, rather than guardsmen from 872 who knew Shiro when he was alive and were killed at the Harvest Ceremony.

Although... I suppose another way to resolve it is if they had resided in the Underworld until after the Factions storyline had concluded (Shi Wang's dialogue implies that he may not have arrived in the Realm of Torment until after Shiro) - possibly just happening to have been among the souls that were tossed into the Bone Pits during one of the periods when the Terrorwebs usurped the Underworld.

They recognized something was wrong with Shiro. Shiro did not. That's the reason I implied in my hypothesis.

But this begs the question: Why did Victor, Archemorus, and Vizu escape Torment? (My guess being thanks to their spirits being brought back to the mortal realm - so it would seem... Ritualists have more say over spirits than the gods themselves).

without knowing a lot about lore - id say one aspect could be - realm of torment was abbadons prison but at some stage it got over run and controlled by abbadon.How long before this got detected we dont know and the envoys may have unwittingly sent many souls there without knowing who was in control.
No1 also knows shiros state of mind - was he pushed that far over the edge he wouldnt recognise any reason but his own , did he know with sane reason what or why he was doing things.Abbadon may have used shiros madness ( and paranoid delusions ) to his own advantage and used that to get shiro to try and become mortal again.
Abbadon has or had almost an eternity to gain his revenge starting from prophs and working into nf - tho i did expect something from him to appear in eotn as hes always had a small hand in the 3 main campaigns.
As for the affliction - was every person turned or were there cases where a person for unknown reasons ( maybe purity of soul etc ) wasnt able to be turned.How did the affliction work as when you think how our chrs have faced both afflicted and shiro and yet we dont get afflicted ourselves

They recognized something was wrong with Shiro. Shiro did not. That's the reason I implied in my hypothesis.

But this begs the question: Why did Victor, Archemorus, and Vizu escape Torment? (My guess being thanks to their spirits being brought back to the mortal realm - so it would seem... Ritualists have more say over spirits than the gods themselves).

I considered that theory, but Tiendi's dialogue implies that she didn't figure it out until years after Shiro's betrayal, and Shi Wang seems completely clueless until you report the evidence of the other three.

Now there's an interesting question. Perhaps the emperor himself was being influenced, or he wished to honour his new bodyguard.

My personal preferred theory is that he'd received warning that his life would be at risk during the Harvest Ceremony, but didn't realise that it was his own bodyguard that was the threat. The Unwaking Waters cinematic starts with the temple guard informing the emperor that the temple had been secured, with no one inside and the emperor's safety assured - while that may be standard practice, it could also indicate some form of forewarning.

Of course, this forewarning could have come from the same "fortune-teller" as influenced Shiro, making it a neat little self-fulfilling prophecy - putting Shiro into the right state of mind to do it, and the emperor in the right frame of mind to give him the opportunity.